


In the calm calculus of reason

by Merricat Kiernan (rosa_himmelblau)



Series: The Roadhouse Blues [43]
Category: Wiseguy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-03
Updated: 2020-11-03
Packaged: 2021-03-09 04:40:27
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,142
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27368941
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rosa_himmelblau/pseuds/Merricat%20Kiernan
Summary: How many elephants does it take to change a lightbulb?
Series: The Roadhouse Blues [43]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1069713





	In the calm calculus of reason

"Guy walks into a psychiatrist's office," Sonny said.

Vinnie stopped in the middle of pulling up his shorts to frown at him. "What?"

"I said, a guy walks into a psychiatrist's office—"

"Are you telling me a joke?" Vinnie asked. He wasn't at his brightest first thing in the morning.

Sonny rolled his eyes. "No, I'm telling you the true story of a guy who walked into a psychiatrist's office." Sonny hadn't been trying to be funny, but Vinnie cracked up. He was also at his silliest first thing in the morning. Sonny watched him, laughing a little himself.

When he finally stopped, Vinnie said, "OK, yeah, sorry, go on."

But Sonny only got as far as the word office before Vinnie started laughing again. "That's not the punchline!" Sonny told him, which only made it worse; they were both laughing now.

"Sorry," Vinnie said again. He didn't sound sorry. "Go on."

"Never mind, it's an old joke anyway."

"Well, from what I heard of it, it's a really good one," Vinnie said, and they both started laughing again.

When Vinnie finally left the room, Sonny thought about getting up. He could sleep a little more, if he wanted to, and he thought about how he never used to get tired. Exhausted, yes; he'd work himself to a state of exhaustion, sleep a few hours, then get up and start over again. But never this delicious feeling of drowsiness, where his body didn't feel like moving, and he didn't have to get up if he didn't want to. He almost felt as though he could start taking naps, even though they still seemed like a huge waste of time.

Vinnie came back, carrying the laundry basket. "You didn't put the clothes away." He set the basket on Sonny's feet.

"Hey!" Sonny kicked it off his feet, nearly knocking it off the bed. "Neither did you."

"What's blue and square?" Vinnie asked.

"What?" Sonny asked, not understanding the question. "Lots of things are blue and square."

And for absolutely no reason, Vinnie started laughing uncontrollably, finally flopping down on the bed to laugh some more

"What's the matter with you?" Sonny asked. "Have you been drinking already? It's only eight in the morning!"

Vinnie was trying to say something, but he was laughing too hard. Sonny got up and dumped the laundry onto the bed. Mostly onto the bed. Some of it got on Vinnie.

"It's a joke," Vinnie said finally. He was lying there in just his pearl gray silk shorts, tears rolling down his cheeks.

"Huh?" Sonny asked, distracted. He took a pair of his socks off Vinnie's stomach.

"A riddle," Vinnie said. "What's blue and square?"

"Oh." That made some sense, anyway. "I don't know," he said, humoring Vinnie, "what's blue and square?"

Vinnie started laughing again. "Lots of things!" he finally gasped.

Sonny was baffled, both by Vinnie's joke, and his bottomless amusement for it, since Sonny couldn't see anything funny about it. "Is that the answer?"

Vinnie shook his head. "No—"

"You're not drunk," Sonny said, "because you don't get like this when you're drunk. Are you high? You can tell me if you are," he added. But Vinnie was just laughing harder. Sonny decided to ignore him, and started getting dressed.

"Am **I** high?" Vinnie got control of himself and sat up. "You wake up telling jokes, and you want to know if **I'm** high?"

"Well, you're acting like it." Sonny sat down to put his socks on. "And what's wrong with me telling you a joke?" He felt strangely defensive. "It's not against the law to tell jokes now, is it?"

"No, but if it ever is, you can be sure I'd be the first to arrest you," Vinnie said. He was smiling at him, that sweet smile that made Sonny want to—

"Yeah, thanks for the warning."

"Of course, it would strictly be a citizen's arrest, and since I don't have any cuffs, I'd have to sit on you to restrain you 'til the uniforms showed up."

"That makes me feel a lot better," Sonny said. "Have you seen my shoes?"

"An orange in disguise," Vinnie said abruptly.

Sonny laughed. It wasn't all that funny, but he was starting to get that silly feeling where everything seemed funny. Apparently Vinnie was contagious.

"Oh, yeah? What's the difference between eating an elephant and eating peanut butter?"

"An elephant doesn't stick to the roof of your mouth." Vinnie said. "Elephant jokes? God, I haven't heard an elephant joke in years."

"Hey, sorry I'm not more up to date. Were you going out like that?"

"Not if you'd rather I didn't." And Vinnie smiled at him.

"Put your clothes on."

"'Hey, doc, can you get this guy off my ass?'" Vinnie was standing on one foot, putting on his jeans.

Sonny looked at his ass. All that was there was gray silk. "I'm missing something."

"That wasn't the punchline? Of your psychiatrist joke? You said it was an old one."

"No, it was—"

"No, don't tell me. I want to see if I can figure it out."

"You can't get down off an elephant," Sonny advised him, "You get down off a duck." It was the right thing to say; Vinnie lost his balance and fell down which made Sonny start laughing.

"You're going to spend the whole day telling me elephant jokes, aren't you?" Vinnie asked. He was sitting on the floor, untangling his jeans.

"And I know them all. Tracy used to love elephant jokes, so I'd send Chook out to pick 'em up for her."

Vinnie groaned. "God, of course you did. The Pope's coming to town—"

For a second Sonny was confused by this change of subject; then he realized Vinnie was telling a joke.

"—so this guy goes out and buys himself a snazzy new tux to wear while he watches the procession. On the day of the procession, he's standing there with a whole bunch of well-dressed people, but there's a bum standing next to him. And as the Pope's car goes by, it stops, and the Pope gets out and whispers something to the bum. The guy in the tux is incensed! He paid all that money for a new tux, and the Pope talks to a bum! Well, on the last day of the Pope's visit there's going to be another procession, so the guy finds a bum and buys his clothes and puts them on. Then he stands in the same spot where the first bum was standing. And again the car stops, and the Pope gets out. He comes over to the guy and whispers in his ear, 'I thought I told you to get the hell outta here.'"

Sonny laughed. "That's great, I never heard that one before."

"That was Pete's favorite joke. He told it really great, too."

"Yeah?" Sonny asked. "Well, I got one for you." Rapid-fire, he asked, "How do you tell the Polock at the cock fight?"

Vinnie shook his head. "How?"

"He's the guy who brings a duck. How do you tell the Wop at the cock fight?"

Vinnie started laughing. "I don't know."

"He's the guy who bets on the duck. And finally, how can tell if the fight's fixed?"

Now Vinnie was really laughing, shaking his head. "How?"

"The duck wins! That was Dave's favorite joke."

"I like it! 'Should I be worried, or am I just beating a dead horse?'"

Sonny recognized that punchline. "Nope, that's not it. Are you going to finish putting your clothes on, or what?"

"Yeah, yeah." Vinnie got up from the floor, sat on the bed, and pulled on his jeans.

Sonny stopped before he'd fully backed out of the parking space. "You really don't hear that?"

"I really don't hear that because there's nothing to hear. Sonny, I've checked the engine, it's fine. If you want to take it in, have 'em hook it up to the computer and charge you a fortune to tell you it's fine, go ahead. I love saying I told you so. 'That's nothing to worry about, you're just two tents.'"

"A guy tells a psychiatrist he keeps dreaming he's a wigwam and a teepee. But that's not the joke." Vinnie had thrown two punchlines to psychiatrist jokes at him in the elevator, and Sonny had figured out the jokes, neither of which was the joke he'd been about to tell. Sonny had countered with a bunch of elephant jokes.

He backed the car out and drove out of the parking garage. "What has six legs, three ears, four tusks, and two trunks?"

"What?" Vinnie asked.

"An elephant with spare parts." They both laughed. "Maybe it's the gas I'm using," Sonny mused.

"It's not the— How can it be the gas you're using when it's not doing anything? You wanna change gas, go ahead, but they're all the same anyway. We should've taken my car."

"I hate your car." After all that time driving it from one no place to another, getting in Vinnie's car felt like being locked in a box.

"I know you do," Vinnie said, not caring.

"What does Tarzan say when he sees a herd of elephants in the distance?"

Vinnie snickered. "'Look, a herd of elephants in the distance.' I remember that one."

"What did the cat say to the elephant?" Sonny asked.

"I don't know. Meow?"

"Yeah. What did the grape say to the elephant?"

Vinnie sighed. "I don't know."

"Nothing, dummy, grapes can't talk. Did you eat breakfast?" Sonny asked.

"Huh-uh. Hey, let's go to the place with the flaming French toast. We haven't been there in a long time."

"Brandy for breakfast, that's just what you need," Sonny said, but he turned at the corner and headed for the restaurant.

They were walking across the parking lot when Vinnie announced in a loud, clear voice, "'Well, I can clearly see your nuts!'"

Sonny stopped, glanced down at himself for just a second, then stared at Vinnie, who just kept walking. "Wait a minute! What?"

Vinnie walked back over to him, grinning. "Guy walks into a psychiatrist's office wearing nothing but Saran Wrap. He says to the doctor, "'I've felt so weird lately, Doc, can you tell me what's wrong?' And the doctor says, 'Well, I can clearly see your nuts!'"

Annoyed, Sonny laughed. "That's not it. You know why elephants have trunks?"

"Why?"

"'Cause they'd look silly with glove compartments."

Vinnie groaned. They started for the restaurant again.

"What do you know when you see three elephants walking down the street wearing pink sweatshirts?"

"You had one too many at breakfast?" Vinnie guessed.

"No, that they're all on the same team. You want me to tell you the joke, or not?"

"This might kill me, but no, not yet. I'm narrowing it down."

"Yeah, sure you are." Sonny didn't care; he was having fun. "What's the difference between an elephant and a plum?"

Vinnie closed his eyes and rubbed the bridge of his nose, as though he might be getting a headache. "I don't know." He was trying not to laugh.

"An elephant's gray."

Vinnie snorted. "Of course."

Over breakfast they established that if you want to stop a charging elephant, you take away its credit cards, you can tell that an elephant has been in your fridge by the footprints in the butter, you shoot a blue elephant with a blue elephant gun, and elephants are wrinkled because—well, have you ever tried to iron one? They both had the flaming French toast, and they convinced their waitress they were crazy because neither one of them could stop laughing.

"What about this one? A guy walks into a psychiatrist's office and says, 'Hey, Doc! Nobody talks to me!' And the doctor calls out, 'Next!'"

"That's ancient," Sonny said, chuckling a little.

"You said it was an old joke." Vinnie was dipping his fork in the leftover syrup, scooping up what he could, and sticking the fork in his mouth.

"Yeah, it is. Probably about that old, too."

"You gonna hit me with a bunch more elephant jokes now?" Vinnie asked, sounding resigned. The elephant jokes were wearing thin on him.

"You know how to smuggle an elephant across the border?" Sonny asked.

"I have no idea."

"Put a slice of bread on each side, and call him lunch. You want more French toast?"

Vinnie thought about it. "Yeah, why not?"

Sonny motioned to the waitress. "Why did the elephant fall out of the tree?"

"I don't know, why?"

"Because it was dead," the waitress said, smiling in that humor-the-crazy-guys way.

"Another French toast," Sonny said, "and I'd like another cup of coffee."

"You know something?" Vinnie asked on their way out, "I'm getting tired of elephant jokes. I don't even want to know your lousy psychiatrist joke anymore."

"What's that got to do with anything? Know how you get an elephant on top of an oak tree?"

"No."

"Stand him on an acorn and wait fifty years." Sonny laughed. He'd always liked that one.

"What did Rita and Dave think of you supplying Tracy with endless elephant jokes?" Vinnie asked.

Sonny smiled. "I don't know what Rita thought. After two days, Dave quit speaking to me and I wasn't allowed to come over to the house for the next month. Why did the elephant cross the road?"

"It was the chicken's day off," Vinnie answered. "I think I ate too much."

Sonny laughed.

"Maybe I should trade it in," Sonny said. He slipped the car into neutral and revved the engine.

"Over an imaginary sound? Are you just looking for an excuse to buy a new car?"

"There **is** a sound," Sonny insisted. "It sputters." The light turned green. Sonny put the car back into gear.

"Sputters," Vinnie repeated skeptically. "Yeah, your car's got imaginary sputters. Why does an elephant go psssss?"

"Because it's sprung a leak. Why do elephants wear tiny green hats?"

"I don't know," Vinnie said, and rested his head on the dashboard. "I don't—know."

"To sneak across the pool table without being seen," Sonny said. He knew Vinnie had almost said I don't care, but somehow this had turned into a contest, and he wasn't going to give up.

"Of course. Where are we going?" Vinnie asked.

"Gotta pick up my dry cleaning," Sonny said. "And I was thinking maybe after that we could—"

"No! I do not need a new suit! I don't need the suits I have!"

Sonny laughed. "Yeah, OK." He didn't know why Vinnie got so cranky about Sonny buying him clothes. "How many elephants does it take to change a light bulb?"

"Don't be stupid, elephants can't change light bulbs. You wanna go to a movie?"

"Yeah, sure. Anything good out?" Sonny asked.

"I don't know. We can drive by, find out."

"OK, after I get my dry cleaning. I hope they got out the ketchup you got all over my gray suit."

"You got about eighteen gray suits," Vinnie said. "I figured they were disposables, that instead'a getting 'em cleaned, you just threw 'em away. Besides, you didn't complain at the time."

Sonny didn't want to talk about that. "How do you make a dead elephant float?"

"Pour a root beer over two scoops of dead elephant."

Sonny laughed. He pulled into the dry cleaner's parking lot, shut off the engine, and went in to get his suit. Vinnie waited in the car, smoking, and Sonny watched as he switched the ignition back over so he could play the radio.

He was surprised Vinnie hadn't guessed the joke he'd been about to tell him because it was an old one. A guy walks into a psychiatrist's office and says, "Doc, my brother thinks he's a chicken." To which the doctor replies, "That's crazy. Why don't you have him committed?" And the guys answers, "I would, but we need the eggs." Ba-dum-bump! He'd been thinking about that joke because he'd realized Vinnie was a chicken.

Not literally a chicken, but he was crazy like the guy in the joke: he thought he was a fag. Sonny didn't know why he thought that; it was crazy. One look at him and anybody could see he wasn't. But Vinnie was convinced. Sonny had tried persuading him he wasn't, but when Vinnie got an idea, there was no changing his mind. So they argued about it, and Vinnie got depressed, and fat, and cried about Frank, and wanting to go home. Maybe it was because Frank didn't argue with him when he started saying he was a fag, he just went along with him about it. That was all Sonny could figure, because when he stopped fighting with Vinnie, and let him sleep in his bed, things were fine. And besides that, the sex was great, and ridiculously uncomplicated. For all of his wanting to talk about stuff, Vinnie didn't really have anything to say, once Sonny started humoring him, and treating him like a chicken. Great sex and free eggs; what could be better than that?

"I want a root beer float," Vinnie said when Sonny got back in the car.

"You just ate a loaf of French toast," Sonny protested.

"I know. I'm not even hungry, but a root beer float sounds so good. I can't remember the last time I had one."

"You can have one after the movie," Sonny told him. "We'll get a pizza, too."

"I guarantee you, I won't get tomato sauce on your suit," Vinnie said.

"I'm not wearing a suit."

"Yeah, that's why I can make that guarantee. What's gray and puts out forest fires?"

"Smokey the Elephant." Sonny realized that Vinnie had taken over the elephant jokes, but he didn't care—he knew all the answers.

"Are you ever going to tell me the psychiatrist joke?" Vinnie asked.

"I thought you didn't want me to."

"I changed my mind."

"OK. A guy walks into a psychiatrist's office and says, 'Doc, my brother thinks he's a chicken.' And the doctor says, 'That's crazy. Why don't you have him committed?' And the guys answers, 'I would, but we need the eggs.'"

Vinnie laughed. "Yeah, you're right, that's ancient. Why were you going to tell me that joke first thing in the morning?"

Sonny couldn't tell Vinnie that he was a chicken. And if he told him he wasn't a fag, it would just start an argument, and maybe Vinnie would get depressed again. He seemed better—he'd been a whole lot better since they traveled around Italy—but you just couldn't be sure. "I dunno. Maybe I dreamed about it last night."

For a minute, Vinnie squinted at him, like Sonny wasn't quite in focus or something. Then he said, "What do you do with a green elephant?"

"Wait until it gets ripe," Sonny said.


End file.
